


Syd's New Puppy [Sept. 5, 2012]

by patchfire, raving_liberal



Series: Story of Three Boys [74]
Category: Glee
Genre: College, Future Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-13
Updated: 2012-06-13
Packaged: 2017-11-07 15:49:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/432839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchfire/pseuds/patchfire, https://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/pseuds/raving_liberal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Syd thought her sophomore year would be predictable, even boring, until she walked into her Intro to LGBT studies class and saw <i>him</i> sitting there. Finn Hudson: Football Player.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Syd's New Puppy [Sept. 5, 2012]

Syd frowns at the bottom of her mug, absolutely certain that all of her coffee should not be gone already. Probably that bitch at the library, who made her leave it at the security desk, took a few sips. She shakes her head and walks into Sewell, waiting on the elevator to take her upstairs. It’s only the second day of the semester, her coffee’s gone, and it’s still hot outside. She’ll take the stairs once it’s cooler. Or she has more coffee. 

Intro to LGBT Studies isn’t going to be the hardest class of the semester, and Syd likes to think it might be the easiest, but she can’t help stopping in her tracks when she walks into room 5206.

Oh. My. _God_. 

“Syd! Syd from the QSA! Hey!”

And there he is, the over-eager puppy, sitting in the middle of a GEN & WS class as if that’s something that football players _do_ , beaming and waving at her. Syd stares at her coffee mug one final time, certain its betrayal figures into this somehow, and crosses the room towards one Finn Hudson (who plays football), before he starts shouting. Syd’s pretty sure that is something that football players do in fact do—shout. 

“Finn Hudson! From the QSA, too! I play football, remember? I had _the shirt_!”

As if she could forget. “I remember,” Syd says faintly, taking a seat next to him for some unfathomable reason. “With the brothers.”

Now he looks like a puppy whose toy is missing very briefly, before finding it again and brightening once more. “Yeah, my brothers. That’s right.”

“So, you’re.” Syd pauses. “You’re taking _this_ class.”

Finn nods enthusiastically. “Yep! Do you think we’ll get to talk about Cleve Jones?”

Syd knows she probably looks ridiculous, staring at Finn and blinking. “I have no paradigm that helps me to understand you,” she finally says. “You’re an anomaly.”

“You can watch _Milk_. It explains most of it, but there’s some books, too. Kurt has them on his e-reader. I can get the names, if you want.”

“What _are_ you?” Syd says, shaking her head. “I know, I know. You’re Finn Hudson and you play football.” She stops. “Wait, what’s your major?”

“Music education,” Finn Hudson (football player) says. “What’s yours?”

“Music education. Right. Show choir.” Syd wants to laugh at herself. “Mine’s political science, with a minor in gender and women’s studies.”

“That’s right! I was in show choir.” Finn beams again, like she’s done something extraordinary by remembering him. Who _wouldn’t_ remember him? “I tried out for the Wisconsin Singers this weekend, like we talked about before. And, hey, I saw your friend Trish there! Trish, from the QSA!”

“And that went… well?” Syd guesses, because he seems pretty damn happy about everything. Syd’s pretty sure she wasn’t this enthusiastic at the same time last year. 

“It did! I made it on the team, for starters. The Singers team. I’m already on the football team, obviously,” Finn explains. “Oh, and somebody there recognized me from YouTube! We kind of end up on YouTube a lot in my family.” 

“You’re on YouTube.” Syd shakes her head. “Why am I not surprised? Who else is on YouTube? Your hamster?”

Finn laughs like that’s the funniest thing he’s heard all day. “Kurt would be pretty upset if he found out someone thought he was a hamster, but no, it was Kurt. Last year we had this whole school board thing in our city, with the bullying policies, and Kurt gave a speech at the school board meeting. Santana—she was in our show choir, too—filmed him and put it on YouTube. It kind of went viral. You want me to show you?” He pulls an iPad out of his backpack. 

“Wait.” Syd holds up her hand. “You said school board?”

“Right, Lima City Schools in Lima, Ohio. That’s where I’m from. Lima, Ohio.”

“‘We look over our shoulders, but we endure’?” Syd quotes questioningly. 

“Yeah! Hey, you’ve seen it!” Finn looks like he’s in danger of exploding from joy. “Wasn’t it an awesome speech? Man, me and Puck had to block, like, a _lot_ of people on Twitter over that. There are some serious creepers out there.”

“So that’s your brother?” Syd clarifies. “And… there are creepers on Twitter?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, there’s creepers all over the Internet. Also in show choir in general. You wouldn’t think it, probably, but it’s true. Show choir is full of creepers,” Finn says, shaking his head slowly in apparent disgust at the creepers of the world. “But yep, that’s Kurt. He’s kind of famous.”

“No, I don’t think I would have considered them to be hiding in the show choir world,” Syd agrees. “We actually talked about Lima last year a couple of times, at the QSA meetings. There’s one guy from Fort Wayne, who said he wasn’t far from Lima, he was really interested.”

“Yeah, Fort Wayne’s not far at all. It’s was pretty cool. Kurt and Tina did most of the work, but a lot of us got a chance to talk at the school board meetings or whatever. I hope it’s gonna be a lot better for everybody at McKinley this year than it was while we were there.” He beams again and says, in a voice that’s probably meant to be conspiratorial, “I dropped all my note cards before my speech, though. That’s why Artie didn’t use the whole thing in the movie. He used Kurt’s and Casey’s and Taylor’s, though, and most of Santana’s who I mentioned before.”

“Movie? Oh, right. The documentary,” Syd nods. “I read about that last month.”

“Yeah? That’s awesome! I’ve got a copy of it, if you want to watch it some time,” Finn says. “Jamie and Doug—they’re my roommates—have already seen it, but they might want to watch it again. Or, hey, you could bring some of your QSA friends and we’ll have a movie night. We used to do those with our PFLAG group.” He pauses momentarily, then adds, “It’ll have to be a weeknight, probably. I’m going to be pretty busy on weekends.”

Syd tries really hard not to laugh at that, because, yes, Trish bitches about the Singers’ rehearsals on Sundays, and he’s playing football, too. “Yes, I would imagine so,” she finally says wryly. “But I would be interested in seeing it. The media coverage wasn’t extensive, nationally.” She pauses. “I can’t do Tuesday nights, though. I tutor through the residence halls, and for whatever reason, Tuesday is _the_ night for tutoring.”

Finn looks a bit like his toy is lost again, only this time it takes longer for it to be found, though Syd can’t imagine why tutoring makes him look so sad. The football staff wouldn’t have let him in this class if he couldn’t keep up, for starters; the GEN & WS professors are _not_ the ones that give the varsity athletes practically free grades.

“Yeah. Yeah, Tuesdays are, uh. Well, how about Wednesday? After the QSA, I mean. We could see if anybody else wanted to come watch it with us,” Finn offers. “We don’t have a ton of seating or anything, but we could drag our chairs in and we’ve got the futon. We could like, unfold it or whatever.”

“Tonight? Or next week, do you mean?”

“Next week. Figured I’d mention it tonight and see who all might be interested, and then they could just follow us over next week.”

Syd nods. “I’m sure there are at least a few who would be interested.”

Finn beams at her again. “This is awesome. It’s so cool I’m in this class with you, Syd. I think this semester’s gonna be great. I was kind of worried about it, but now I think maybe everything’s gonna work out.”

Syd smiles back at him as the professor finally arrives, and she can’t help but shake her head a little as she copies down the information written on the board. Somehow, Syd had thought that her sophomore year would be just like her freshman year, just with a better place to call home, already knowing people when she walks across campus. A little bit predictable, even. 

Syd’s pretty sure that predictable went out the window when the puppy known as Finn Hudson, Football Player, waltzed into the QSA and her class.


End file.
